LONDON: Oil prices steadied on Monday following last week's heavy losses.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in September dipped five cents to stand at $104.79 a barrel in London afternoon deals.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for September gained 14 cents to $98.02 a barrel.
New York prices had last week tumbled to their lowest level since early February, with the market awash with supplies, dealers said.
The falls erased some of the gains built up in recent months amid concern over armed insurgencies in crude producers Iraq and Libya.
Prices have also been supported by conflict in Ukraine, which is a key conduit for Russian energy exports to Europe.
Prices steadied on Monday after Friday's jobs report from the US, the biggest consumer of crude oil in the world and so watched carefully by oil investors.
The Commerce Department reported that the US economy generated 209,000 new jobs in July, while the unemployment rate edged up to 6.2 percent.
"Despite the disappointing payrolls figures, it was also the sixth consecutive month of the economy adding more than 200,000 jobs," said Desmond Chua, an analyst at traders CMC Markets.
"This is widely considered to be healthy labour growth by economists," he added.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.